The Mock-up; From an idea to a booth

Happy 2015!
I decided not to wait another 2 years before my next blog posting, :-)
I have been asked over and over again - Nadine, how do you come up with fresh booth ideas for smaller companies who don't want to spend a gazillion bucks and who want an awesome booth but with a relatively quick set up and tear down.
Here it is, my (now) not so secret process.
I start with A LOT of thought, much is pretty straight forward, but each case is always a little different. I think about the product that is being sold, how it will be sold at retail, who I want to sell it to, and, what type of a setting suits the product. I go through the obvious list of what the exhibiting company has or has not already done in terms of a booth pre- Nadine.
Do they have a catalog? great photography? full on branding? or maybe things are a little scattered look-wise, maybe we want to make the look more cohesive and pardon the expression "on brand" (ugh). So many questions, but SO important to know before you start to mock things up.
...How big is the booth? (usually my client's booths are between a 10x10 and 10x15), how many products do we need to show? do we want to do a lot of repeat? ie: 12 of each item? if there are only a few items in the line, or, is the line vast and the booth space limited?

Now, what about style? Visual inspiration.
The line could be gorgeous dainty jewelry, but how am I going to get buyers out of the aisle and into this booth to take the time to look at the gorgeous dainty jewelry, when there's a daiquiri machine a few booths down and a clown and puppies? (not quite, but almost)

Does my client's line have great style already? or does it need to find its look? Is there something in the line that can inspire the entire look of the booth, maybe a great photo in their catalog that can get the ball rolling?... How extravagant can I get with this booth? What's the budget? Can we ship in 10ft antique armoires?, yeah, didn't think so.

I happen to think in images, I can build a booth in my head first, literally swapping out fixtures, paint colors and signage with my eyes closed, lying in bed. Odd? probably, but it's how I roll.  Funny thing is, when I was doing my own booths, I rarely did any kinds of visual mock-ups, I imagined my booths and simply made lists. (When I look back on it, I probably would have saved some time by mocking it up after imagining it, but too late now). Most of my clients are not into the whole imagining thing, understandably, they want to see it, or something very close to it, before they show up in the booth, so I create mock-ups, and that is what we are going to talk about today.

I am going to take the initial launch of the lovely Eleven Point - Fragrance Merchants line, this past summer. Before we did anything in terms of a trade show for his newest brand, David (the owner) wanted to see something that he could really sink his teeth into, all the pretty words and descriptions weren't going to cut it, he wanted visuals. Here is what the very first mock-up looked like.

A little background, the line is inspired by nature, the fragrances, memories and experiences David and his family had growing up on the Eleven Point River. The initial launch would show 6 different fragrances in 6 different product categories (white glass vessel candle, black glass vessel candle, reed diffuser, room mist, travel tin candle and fragrant sachet). The line was designed to coordinate in rustic or modern settings, for women or for men. To have a lived-in comfortable, relaxed look with sophistication and elegance, focusing on the amazing fragrances of the line; River Fern, Bonfire, Cotton Creek, Honeysuckle Rain, Coconut Moon (my favorite) and Blackberry.

Charcoal painted walls with the box pattern as wallpaper down each wall, gold wall sconces, signage like the brand's packaging, two perfectly weathered leather club chairs, one large wooden wall shelf, large nested table set and weathered wooden floors. I knew this was simply a jumping off point to get things moving along, it might not all be feasible, but we needed a start. Also, when starting with a mock-up like this, you can really walk through a few orders in your head and really think about what you need in your booth in terms of supplies and what you need to show in terms of product. And yes, it's a wholesale show and buyers know how to buy, but buyers are also regular people who shop too, so I like to think about what I like, what attracts me to a store, how I like to shop.

It just so happened that before doing the Eleven Point booth, reps and showrooms were hired, so we quickly switched things up for the limited space of a showroom. Here are the mock-ups.

Dallas showroom, approximately 8 feet of wall and approx 6 feet of floor. 

Here's the Mock -up

 

in progress

 

end result (very bad photo/color)

Las Vegas showroom, 8 feet of wall with about 10 feet of floor.

 

Wait, what now? I can have ceiling electricity?... we can do this.

They might have a table we can use? it's rectangular? okey dokey.

 

result (excuse the photo quality, it's all they sent me!)

 

 Atlanta - variation on the same theme, again with a round table

You are getting the idea now, right?
For technical info, I use Adobe Illustrator to create these mock-ups, truth be told, I wish I could use Illustrator for everything, it's amazing. But if you are not into the big guns software, you can certainly use other things, or even draw it out, or make your life a little simpler and call us.
(please note that we were NOT present for any of these showroom set-ups, they were done by the showrooms themselves based on our mock-ups, and, they did a great job! This go around of shows, I am getting really detailed about exactly where we want product displayed and on how many samples are sent to each show, you will see that soon, Atlanta is being set up right this second as I type this post :-)

Here are few sources for items that were used in the showrooms - round table in Las Vegas Showroom, battery powered wall sconces were purchased on ebay for all showrooms, custom self-adhesive wallpaper.

Next up, how we tried a few looks before settling on this NY Booth last summer.

still more great booths!

My booth piece continues with  more of my favorites in the simple, clean, lower budget-but-fabulous category from the August 2010 New York Gift Fair,  here they are:

http://www.9spotmonk.com/ did a GREAT booth! foamcore white walls, covered in a fabulous high gloss orange vinyl adhesive. They also built a wall right in the middle of their booth which not only added 2 extra walls for displaying but also added architecture to the square booth. They used a craft paper brown to offset the high gloss orange to make their wall, for their bench at the back of the booth and for their floor.

LOVE this booth!

(and hope to have a link to share with you soon on where they got their orange high gloss vinyl!

http://www.flipandtumble.com/ took white and clean to new heights!

They did a floor that looks like wood, simple white furnishings (Ikea) and white walls.

They lined their white walls with their fantastic bags, making the colors simply POP!

I think the simplicity of this booth and the almost laboratory look of it was a really smart way to showcase their products, let me tell you, walking down their aisle, you HAD to look in their booth, and that, as the fabulous martha would say, is a good thing!

Lastly in this series, one of my favorite little booths at the show, http://www.baileydoesntbark.com/ .

Everytime I walked past this booth, I would admire and swoon a little...

Using simple dark stained wooden shelves and tables with non color, natural textured extras and vintagy details they acheived a beautiful soft look yet with a very sophisticated feel, right down to their beautiful sign! (the font is amazing!).

Through their display, they did a great job showing their clients how easy and impactful it could be to show their products once clients order them and have them in store.

They are showing retailers that their products look great grouped  (hey retailers, buy a bunch of our stuff and you too can have this look!) Hello? who wouldn't want this look!?

So smart! So effective...YAYE Bailey Doesn't Bark!

(for some crazy reason I didn't ask...but I hope Bailey is a cat or a fish...or a pet rock...)

more layout options

I had shown you an easy foam board layout for a 10'x10' booth here , by using 3, 4'x8' foam board panels per wall. You would place a panel at each side, right to the corner and overlap a 3rd panel in the center of the wall, like this (this shows one wall).
For a 10'x 10' booth, this design layout would use 9 panels of foam board.

Here is another way to plan your layout.

Find the center of your wall. Line up 2 panels of foam board so that they meet in the center of your wall. Now you will have 1 foot left of space on either side to cover up.

At this point, you can play around with your design a little bit...

1- You can start putting up your side walls now, but start at the front poles on each side, like this.

You will have 2 panels per wall, on your back wall, the panels will be centered, on the side walls your panels will be lined up with the front poles. Result will be 2 feet of unfoamed wall on each of your side walls (the area near the back of your booth), plus, 1 foot on each side of your back wall that is unfoamed. In other words, your 2 back corners will be open.

2- Here comes the fun part...well, some of us weirdos think this is fun!...

You can now decide how you would like to cover your empty space in the back corners.

You might want to use a panel that is scored down the center to fit into the corners. You can slip the excess behind your already set panels, or trim them with a sharp box cutting tool/blade.

You might decide to make a diagonal wall, by attaching a panel from your back wall to your side wall. There are no rules here...you can do both corners differently, one as a fit corner and one as a diagonal, get creative! This can actually make your very square booth look a little bit more interesting and architectural.

* A note here on storing excess samples or supplies. If you decide to do a diagonal wall, you can actually use the space behind it for some storage! Sometimes we simply tape one side closed on the bottom near the floor and this way we can open the diagonal wall when we need to get back there. (very convenient!)

see our diagonal wall (below) on the right, we displayed our press features on it.

we also kept the trunk in front of it to keep the wall in place!

we did the same thing here (below) with a diagonal wall.

If you make a mistake, cut down your foam board in the wrong place or find that your booth is not exactly the dimensions you had planned for, or the perfect square you had hoped for, don't sweat it, once it's all up and your samples are displayed, if a seam is not perfect, or if one wall is not exactly the mirror image of the other, it won't show...relax, no one will notice! If you need to cleanly run white tape down all your seams to keep things straight and secure, do it! it will look fine (try to use matte rather than glossy tape for that!), if you need to use some heavy duty clamps or extra velcro tape or hot glue- do it!...this is all illusion, it doesn't have to withstand weeks or months of use, it's temporary and really just theater, keep that in mind!

trunk obsession

I have this weird little obsession, I love trunks! I love good looking, rather masculine looking trunks! I have lugged trunks home from Europe, bought trunks at flea markets, have one that my parents bought together more than 40 yrs ago and I even use one of my favorite trunks in my trade show booth, (I wrote about it here).

The other day, while working on a design job for a client, I ended up on the restoration hardware website. More specifically right here.

OMG! BEAUTIFUL....don't you think?
I have never been a huge fan of Restoration Hardware, actually, come to think of it, I am not sure why not?...these are gorgeous! Nice work RH!

details details details

In getting ready for the Metropolitain Cooking and Entertaining Show that's coming up in less than 2 weeks in Washington, I have found myself, once again, stuck deep in the depths of trade show preparation and details. I pretty much have NYC down to a science, I know on my drive down, what I need and where I can get it, from my booth flooring from the Home Depot to the wood slats I use to put up my very simple and effective Ikea shelves. I even get together with a few other exhibitors who do the Gift Fair and we order foamboard together (gives your booth a hard wall look for a much less expensive price and you can walk out of the booth and leave them at the end because for the price, they are NOT worth saving) through Utrecht Art Supplies in NYC. We organize it so that someone is at the Javits Center at the right time and Utrecht delivers it right to the door for us on the first set up day, so convenient!
We actually have a skid that stays in the NY area now.
After each show, we pack up our samples and booth decor (tables, chairs, shelves, booth sign etc) and shrinkwrap it, then we walk right out of the Javits Center and that's that. We have Service By Air pick it up (right out of our booth) and they store it for us and bring it in or ship it out to our next show.
Storage for the one skid runs us about $35/month, plus we pay for transporting it in and out, (they will ship it from coast to coast if that is what you need).
This costs us less than shipping everything back and forth all the time in between shows and saves us on logistical headaches and organizing. We keep almost all our needed supplies on that skid (a tool box with everything you would possibly need to set up a booth) even a step ladder, our electrical cords and clamp lights. New samples are usually sent from our warehouse to our hotel in NYC or a local Fedex office and we get fresh flowers and any little details we need at each show.
So now we are going to DC, and, it's not a trade show, but rather a retail show.
As mentioned here, we need to think about presenting, stocking and selling, rather than simply displaying and order taking (as with wholesale trade show).
Once again, baby Tess will be accompanying us, but this time we will not be driving, but rather flying.
We have decided to not rent a car. We are staying close to the convention center and we will make it work without the added expense and hassle of driving around to pick up supplies and schlepping a 7 month old along.
Originally, I had thought about hiring a DC area rollergirl to do some running around for us, (another wonderful example of how great it is to be part of the rollerderby community/network), to pick up flooring, do an Ikea run for us, etc but after a steady run of unforeseen obstacles, even that wasn't necessary.
The final decision was that we would not get our skid sent to DC, (we only need about 1/3 of what is on it) and to incur shipping expenses for only 1/3 seemed silly. Great! one big decision made!
New problem, what kind of booth decor would we use and how could we get it done quickly and inexpensively without our usual booth stuff on hand?
We could do the Ikea run; pick up new Strippa shelves (at $4 each we can afford to leave the others in the NY area and just buy more). NEWS FLASH! Ikea no longer makes Strippa shelves! F#%K!
To make a very long story a little shorter, this type of situation just seemed to keep happening, we would get 3 steps in and then BOOM, it wouldn't work.
Here's what did work. Utrecht Art Supplies worked! May I just say, "Utrecht, I love you!", the customer service is amazing and they always seem to come through when no one else does!
Conveniently, they have a store just blocks from the DC Convention Center (YES!), I called about foamboard and that was absolutely NO problem. When I asked if they could deliver, they told me not to worry, a couple of guys will help out or walk it over to the convention center, it won't be a problem!
Cool, walls taken care of.
Then came the flooring issue. We usually use this relatively inexpensive, (very heavy), white coated masonite that comes in 4'x8' sheets at Home Depot. We get it cut into squares to fit nicely over the floor of our booth (we tape it together with white tape) and it also fits into the car to transport to the convention center, (usually 3'x3' pieces or so).

As mentioned, we are not renting a car, so there goes that idea, but what to do to get the sleek, glossy white backdrop of a booth that BlueDogz Design products look so great on?...
Once again, our fabulous friends at Utrecht saved the day. I explained the issue and what we were looking for and they had a bunch of great, disposable, inexpensive ideas to get the look we are after, we have decided on shiny white mounting board. We are quite sure it will hold up for 2 days of traffic, it is sweepable, so we can keep it clean and it is the look we are after. YAY!
Now what about those shelves?
My usual shelving process with foamboard is, may I say, absolutely ingenius! (Yes, I said it. I wouldn't normally brag, but this process is pretty darn brilliant, see photo just above). I am constantly asked how I get the shelves to stay up on foamboard, I should write a book on it (hmmm) I will share, promise, stay tuned.

Well, this is where a sudden new design was born! Xnay on the shelves for this show, we are going bold, graphic and new....(and heck, it will eliminate the whole power tool, wood and shelving process...take note, I just let some secrets slip out). The entire back wall, 8 ft high, by 10 ft wide (which will look like a sleek white wall, thanks to the foamboard) will have fabulous BlueDogz Design clipboards hanging all over it, on little clear adhesive hooks. We will be able to get approx 10 across in approx 6-8 rows, trust me, it is going to look stunning! In the middle of the wall, we will have our new sign (I love it! you?)

In terms of booth furniture, to display all of our, displays and products, we have decided to simple rent 2 large ugly trade show tables from the venue (one 4 ft long and the other 6 ft long) and do something special to them (once again, stay tuned, I will show you step by step how to transform ugliness to utter fabulousness!) ...I will also share info on how you won't need a phone line (for $400) to process credit cards, how you won't need the convention center's $99/day wifi, to get on the internet (hopefully) and how you don't even need to buy an aircard to get unlimited WIFI service for less than $10 a day with no contracts.
Damn, I am starting to sound like an infomercial. 
Fine, but if you do shows, you are going to thank me for doing all your ground work for you!